"
"Ah!" cried Calyste, "he does not love her. I would leave her free.
True love means a choice made anew at every moment, confirmed from day
to day. The morrow justifies the past, and swells the treasury of our
pleasures. Ah! why did he not stay away a little longer? A few days
more and he would not have found her. What brought him back?"
"The jest of a journalist," replied Camille. "His opera, on the
success of which he counted, has fallen flat. Some journalist,
probably Claude Vignon, remarked in the foyer: 'It is hard to lose
fame and mistress at the same moment,' and the speech cut him in all
his vanities. Love based on petty sentiments is always pitiless. I
have questioned him; but who can fathom a nature so false and
deceiving? He appeared to be weary of his troubles and his love,--in
short, disgusted with life. He regrets having allied himself so
publicly with the marquise, and made me, in speaking of his past
happiness, a melancholy poem, which was somewhat too clever to be
true. I think he hoped to worm out of me the secret of your love, in
the midst of the joy he expected his flatteries to cause me.
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